1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a floor-wiring structure applied to the floor parts in a construction or building and to a member for floor wiring used in this structure.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, in order to rationalize office organization, office innovation has become a very current issue. It includes, for example, replacement or installation of office automation (OA) apparatus, lay-out modification due to office reorganization, etc. In accordance with this tendency, an increasing number of wiring systems have been developed. A prevailing system is a floor-wiring structure.
As a floor-wiring structure, there already exists a double-floor structure in which unitary floor members are tiled or arranged side-by-side and head-to-tail (in a checkered pattern) on a base floor. This type of structure is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application published before examination under the No. 8-130821.
Usually, after installing those unitary floor members in a checkered pattern on a base floor, thereby forming wiring pathways, cables are installed therein. In such a structure, there is no zone for storing part of a cable where part of the cable still to be used is stored and held. Hence, it becomes necessary to carry out the work on the site, such as cutting an unused part of the cable, conditioning the cable end, etc. Accordingly, a considerable amount of time is needed for these operations and for controlling the quality of the work thereafter. Special expertise is also needed for accomplishing these operations. Such difficulties tend to lower the quality of the cable-end conditioning on the working site. Further, in the above operation, the cable is cut after being wired, so that there may not be enough margin of unused cable remaining. It is therefore difficult to respond to a sudden design change required by the working on the site.
In some cases, in order to have a surplus part of the cable available, the floor structure is provided with a storage panel, the bottom side of which has a space for storing part of a cable. In this structure, the surplus part of the cable is looped and put on the base floor. Then, it is covered with the storage panel. Therefore, the cable cannot be further wired, once the storage panel and the floor members are installed. Further, when the wiring of the cable has to be modified, the storage panel must be removed beforehand. These situations worsen the workability of such cables and such systems. Moreover, the positioning of the storage panel and the neighboring floor members is difficult to define with precision.